One of the things that I find most fascinating about butoh, which if you’re not already familiar with, you need to check out, is the sheer diversity of approaches that exist to create it. Over the past 6 years, I have taken classes and workshops with at least a dozen different teachers of butoh, all of which were incredibly different. In this article, I’ve attempted to give a brief overview of a few of the founding principles and key exercises in each of four contemporary butoh styles: temputenshiki, subbody method, space dance, and body-ritual-movement.

1. Temputenshiki

Name:

Dairakudakan / Temputenshiki

Founder:

​Akaji Maro

Core Idea:

A student of Hijikata’s and former actor, Akaji Maro founded Dairakudakan in 1972. “Temputenshiki”, one of the company’s guiding principles and a category of work they create which means: All bodies are talented, precious, and beautiful. They believe your dance should be a way of showcasing your body's natural beauty. Dairakudakan proposes 3 main methods for creating dance, 1) space body, 2) mold body, 3) capturing unusual movement.

Sample​Exercise: ​

​"Capturing Unusual Movement" - Notice the way your body naturally reacts when you are surprised in every day life. It's probably a little strange and possibly beautiful! Instead of returning to normal from minor accidents and surprises, Dairakudakan dancers practice sustaining and staying with a moment of surprise, layering in additional imagery to create truly unique and rich and extraordinary movement.

2. Subbody Butoh Method

Name:

Subbody Butoh Method

Founder:

Rhizome Lee

Core Idea:

Codified into the "Subbody Butoh Method" around the turn of the 21st century, Rhizome Lee's technique is expanded from the work of Motofuji Akiko (Hijikata's wife) and centers on creating pathways into the subconscious through meditation, resonance touch, sen shin hitsu, “edge work” and many other interesting techniques.

Sample​Exercise: ​

“Swaying Meditation” - Begin by sitting comfortably, breathing through mouth or nose. With each inhalation, imagine yourself being pulled up by a thread through the crown of your head. With each exhalation, imagine all your cells slowly falling towards the earth. Then imagine that you are sitting on a boat and the boat begins to sway your pelvis forward, backward, and side to side. Eventually you are swaying in random directions. Segment and amplify any strange sensations you have in the body. This is a technique for quieting the daily mind and activating “subbody mode."

3. Tokyo Space Dance

Name:

Tokyo Space Dance

Founder:

Tetsuro Fukahara

Core Idea:

Inside a tube made of fabric, suspended by 6 points we experience a new way of gathering information about the world. Our senses are heightened and ordinary movement is obstructed. Through the experience of the tube as well as training in 6 “themes” (body foundation, walking dance, contact, spiritual journey, paradise in the little moving, and space dance composition) we discover a beautiful new way of moving.

Sample​Exercise: ​

“Walking Dance” - Hold yourself like an objective body. Look forward and walk very slowly. Allow yourself to be affected by memories and sensations. Some interesting movement may arise. Hold onto your intention to move forward.

4. Body-Ritual-Movement

By transforming our dance, we can transform our daily life and give more creative energy to our community.

Sample​Exercise: ​

“The Life Becoming” - Prepare a spiral-style labyrinth or path on which to walk. Begin to slowly walk towards the center. On every inhale, rise up slightly and on every exhale, sink down. Settle into the ground with every step. Periodically change your arm position higher until the arms are straight overhead. As you walk, allow yourself to consider your entire life up until this point. Don’t force anything. Allow the memory to float, to linger if it wants, or to transform.

Discussion Questions

What other approaches to butoh have you found interesting? Have you tried any of the exercises described above? What was your experience?Leave a comment below.

About the Author

Jordan Rosin is physical theatre artist, teacher, and movement coach. Based primarily in butoh, he also draws on yoga, clowning, and acrobatics to create choreography & movements which he hopes have universal resonance. He received his BFA in Drama from Syracuse University. His main butoh teachers are Joan Laage, Vangeline, & Tetsuro Fukuhara, though he has trained with numerous others. He is the Co-Founder and Producing Artistic Director of The Ume Group, a NY-based physical theatre / dance ensemble. ​www.jordanrosin.com / www.theumegroup.org

​Tickets are now on sale for The Ume Group's 5-Year Anniversary NY Season at the Irondale Center in Brooklyn, NY, August 10 - 13, 2016!Learn more >>>

Jordan Rosin in The Ume Group's "Jordan & The Human" a butoh/PopAction/acrobatic homage to his grandfather, James Bonneau. Photo by Jorge Luna. (2015)

Whether you're an experienced butoh practitioner, or looking into trying butoh for the very first time, there are a ton of great opportunities this fall in NYC to train with teachers of all types! Check out the opportunities listed below. Did we forget any? Leave a comment and we'll add yours to the list.

​In this 40-hour module, Daiichiro aims to create a new collaborative work, based on the Dairakudakan body theory, together with all participants. Participants will be exposed to all aspects of making a piece, which can include costume making and technical preparations, and it will culminate in a public presentation at CAVE.

The theme of this collaborative piece is “Gap”. “Gap” refers to the idea of disparity: that which is not fitted, or that which is disjunct or apart. This could be the physical, spatial relationships, such as those inhabited within a city, or more temporal or intangible concepts, such as the difference between generations or sexes. Daiichiro wishes to explore the potential that exists at the cusp of un-fitting, of a perpetual in between; an abundance springs from a crowd of bodies which prevails within this state of existence.

This class offers practical advice and guidelines for Vangeline Theater Butoh students making the transition from Butoh student to Butoh performer.We will review frequently asked questions and offer specific, clear recommendations. This class is geared towards students who have been studying with Vangeline/ Vangeline Theater for at least a year and have questions about performing Butoh.

November 6-8, 10-12, 14-17Leimay Ludus Guest Teacher Lab: Butoh with Yukio SuzukiThis Guest Teacher Lab is divided into three different modules. Modules can be taken separately or together. Early registration rates and discounts are only open to those who plan on taking all three modules.

This Guest Teacher Lab is open to dancers, body-rooted performers, physical actors of all levels, ages, and capabilities. Modules will explore the following elements and subjects:

In this Guest Teacher Lab, Suzuki will guide participants to move and feel their bodies on a conscious level. Through connecting and separating between body and consciousness, participants will explore their “body of freedom,” opening up a new way of experiencing and moving the body. It all begins when the body is felt carefully.

In this session Suzuki will share his way of how to use, show, be conscious of the body based on different Butoh principles. Participants are invited to excavate their new bodies through Suzuki’s synthesis of and approach to butoh and his ensuing dance technique. Participants will find in these explorations both strength and flexibility that can be carried into many physical expressions of dance.

This session will focus on exploring each participant’s individual way of dancing. Here, it is meaningful to question “What is dance? When does ‘it’ become dance?” and continuously challenge ourselves to embody “it”. Rather than copying another’s movement, it is important that you catch the moment “it” becomes dance through your own body experience. Make your own dance from ‘nothing’, instead of learning a prescribed something. Experience how “it” becomes the work.

Space Dance is a collaboration between dance, architecture, information technology, and design. Its founder, Tetsuro Fukuhara, is an experimental New Butoh dancer, choreographer, writer, and director of Tokyo Space Dance. He belongs to the second generation of Butoh artists. Space Dance in the Robotic Universe was one of twenty performances short-listed by an international jury for the UNESCO Digital Arts Award.

This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council.

This is a butoh based movement workshop. A dance of Soul; A dance of life, that is…ーInochi no Odori (命の踊り）ー by Kazuo Onno Follow your body, follow your spirit, and follow your soul. Let us Butoh. "Butoh awakens my soul; Butoh guides me to what I am."-Yokko

TUITION$40 - $70single-day registration options, as well as student/senior & early bird discounts available

About the Author

Photo by Anton Martynov.

Jordan Rosin is a physical theatre artist, butoh dancer, teacher, and movement coach. Based primarily in butoh, he also draws on gymnastics, yoga, clowning, and martial arts to create choreography and movement with profound and universal resonance. He received his BFA in Drama from Syracuse University and has trained with numerous teachers of butoh including Joan Laage, Vangeline, Diego Pinon, Tetsuro Fukahara, Ko Murobushi, Katsura Kan, and more. Jordan serves as the Producing Artistic Director of the NYC-based physical theatre ensemble, The Ume Group and is a frequent collaborator with Ren Gyo Soh. For The Ume Group, credits include performer/co-creator of FACET (Hollywood Fringe Festival, WAVE RISING SERIES), co-choreographer of ISIS VARIATIONS (FringeNYC 2014, CoolNY 2014 Dance Festival) and director / choreographer of DREAM DANCES. He lives in Brooklyn, NY with his beautiful wife, Kaitlyn.www.jordanrosin.com //@JordanRosin //www.theumegroup.org

Photos by Jorge Luna (​www.jorgelunaphotography.com) from the dress rehearsal of our one-night-only workshop production of Jordan & The Human: Rebirth of the Body on Saturday, September 26, 2015 at Grace & St. Paul's Church, New York, NY. Featuring Jordan Rosin (Producing Artistic Director, The Ume Group).

JORDAN & THE HUMAN: REBIRTH OF THE BODYIn homage to Tatsumi Hijikata, the founder of butoh, Jordan Rosin (Producing Artistic Director, The Ume Group) invokes the spirit of his grandfather James Bonneau and the very words he used to tell his most poignant stories from WWII. Drawing on clown, PopAction, dramatic acrobatics, and butoh dance, Jordan invites us on a journey into memory and the deeply disenfranchised condition of the modern human body.

In my last post, I wrote about "Why Everyone Needs A Little Butoh in Their Life". And while butoh practice is definitely something I think everyone should try once, it can also be very fun and therapeutic to simply see butoh in performance (so long as you go with an open mind). Butoh comes in a lot of different shapes and sizes, but what holds it all together is its function as an extremely unique and personal expression on the part of the performer. So expand your horizons this fall and see if you can catch some of this crazy dance-form/philosophy in action.

1) LEIMAY’s "Thresholds II" and "In Illo Tempore Vignettes"

September 3 & 5, 7:30 PMUsing dance, theater, music, and light at sunset, LEIMAY explores the fragility and resilience of life through a dance of rising and falling in "Thresholds II". In “In Illo Tempore Vignettes” characters are captured suspended in time to reveal what it seems to be eternity or what might be considered as eternity.

While Leimay doesn’t call itself butoh, their work is always highly influenced by the form, including the teachings of the late Ko Murobushi, one of the most famous 2nd generation butoh masters from Japan. - Jordan

2) Butoh Medea at the United Solo Festival

September 17, 7:30PM

Using the Japanese dance form Butoh and an adapted text, Yokko brings the spirit of Medea to life. This fusion of Eastern dance and Western drama puts the audience inside Medea’s dark and desperate struggle. Trapped in the underworld, she is forever cursed to relive her tragic journey through love, hate, and ultimate loss.

Featuring The Ume Group’s very own Yokko, with Choreography by Producing Artistic Director, Jordan Rosin.

4 Ways of Finding Butohby Jordan Rosin

One of the things that I find most fascinating about butoh, which if you’re not already familiar with it, you need to check it out, is the sheer diversity of approaches that exist to create it. Over the past 5 years, I have taken classes and workshops with at least 10 different teachers of butoh, all of which were incredibly different. In this article, I’ve highlighted a few of the approaches I’ve experienced in my personal journey of “finding butoh.” Maybe a few of them can help you find yours as well.

1. Dairakudakan / TemputenshikiFounder: Akaji MaroCore Idea: A student of Hijikata’s and former actor, Akaji Maro founded Dairakudakan in 1972. “Temputenshiki”, one of the company’s guiding principles and a category of work they create which means: All bodies are talented, precious, and beautiful. They believe your dance should be a way of showcasing your body's natural beauty. Dairakudakan proposes 3 main methods for creating dance, 1) space body, 2) mold body, 3) capturing unusual movement.

Exercises: "Capturing Unusual Movement" - Notice the way your body naturally reacts when you are surprised in every day life. It's probably a little strange and possibly beautiful! Instead of returning to normal from minor accidents and surprises, Dairakudakan dancers practice sustaining and staying with a moment of surprise, layering in additional imagery to create truly unique and rich and extraordinary movement.

At first glance, you might think that the highly acrobatic actor-training of French theatre practitioner Jacques Lecoq has nothing to do with Butoh, the post-WWII philosophy of dance and movement emerging from Japan. However, after recently re-reading parts of Lecoq's book "The Moving Body: Teaching Creative Theatre", this butoh dancer is struck by the amazing number correlations between the two.

The Ume Group's "Open Training." Photo by Vanessa Teran.

1. Undulation

"Undulation" is what Lecoq describes as one of three "Natural Everyday Movements" which it is supremely important for an actor to understand. He claims it is the "driving force behind all physical effort manifest in the human body", understood essentially as a transmission of energy from a point of leverage (like the floor) to a point of application (like your spine). Undulation is also a movement which many Butoh teachers commonly use in order to help their students quiet the daily mind and awaken their "Butoh energy." In the Subbody method, this could be equated with activating the "Subbody Mode" where the conscious mind and subconscious body are united in the meditative state from which a butoh dance can emerge!

Last week The Ume Group group began rehearsals for our newest project "Dream Dances".Over the course of the next 20 weeks we will use a combination of dream journaling, butoh and gymnastics to create a new and engaging piece of devised dance theater which strives to inspires audiences to lead more holistic and integrated lives, bringing more of their full selves to each waking moment and promoting the kind of self-care and self-love which we have vowed to exercise as we delve into the darkest and most hidden corners of our own subconscious minds.

You are welcome to join us on this creative journey! Everyone is able to apply the techniques we will use to create Dream Dances to create an awareness and deeper appreciation of their own dream life. With practice, you can discover how your own dreams can enrich your waking moments and daily routine.